Famous Coin Collections of All Time

Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. (1896-1976) was a Baltimore businessman who actively collected coins from the mid-1920s until the late 1970s. He made his reputation known in numismatics for being the only person ever to assemble a complete collection of circulating United States coins by date and mint mark. The Eliasberg Sets are registered with PCGS. Eliasberg did not differentiate between business strikes and Proof strikes, nor did he collect mint errors and die varieties. The goal of his coin collection was to collect one of every type of United States coin intended for general circulation by date and mint. He also collected subtypes such as the 1873 Liberty seated dime. One subtype head arrows next to the date and the other one did not. The only coin that he did not have in his famous coin collection was the 1849 Double Eagle. There is only one of these known, and it is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Since this unique specimen was produced in the year before the coin officially went into production in 1850, most numismatists consider this a pattern coin and not a coin that was ever intended to circulate in American commerce. Eliasberg spared no expense to obtain all the significant rarities. His collection included a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, the unique 1873-CC no-arrows Liberty Seated dime, an 1804 silver dollar, an 1870-S three dollar gold piece and a 1933 gold $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle. When he learned that the 1933 gold coin might have been obtained through illegal means, he voluntarily surrendered it to the government. Bowers & Ruddy auctioned the first part of Eliasberg's collection in 1982, the second set in 1996 and the remaining lots in 1997. The total realized across all three auctions was more than $57 million